Gas tax talks start this summer, with NJ needing TTF plan by 2024

TRENTON – It’s now been nearly six years since the state last passed a law reauthorizing its Transportation Fund, including a hike in the gas tax – which makes it about two years until that plan expires.

To avoid a fiscal cliff, Transportation Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti said talks about what comes next should start this summer, after the fiscal 2023 state budget is finalized.

“The gas tax conversation in my mind doesn’t even become percolated until we get through the budget process,” Gutierrez-Scaccetti said at an Assembly budget hearing Monday “This is more than enough for everybody to do right now.”

In 2016, the state didn’t have a Transportation Trust Fund financing plan approved by the time the prior plan expired, and then-Gov. Chris Christie shut down transportation construction projects for more than three months.

“We do have a couple of years to get…